{Recipe} Panna Cotta

Panna cotta has got to be the easiest dessert you can make. And it is so quick to prepare that you can actually manage to make it during the day with the children around (that in itself is a achievement !).

Now the recipe calls for gelatin and you might have to play a bit with the quantities to find your perfect recipe. The gelatin is here to thicken the cream but remember you are not making jelly !! So just go easy with it.

To make 4 little pots of Panna Cotta

300ml single cream

100ml semi-skimmed milk
2 sheets of gelatin (mine are about 2g each)
50g caster sugar
1/2 sachet of vanilla sugar (or some vanilla extract)

Topping of your choice: fruit coulis, chocolate sauce, etc

Put your gelatin in a bowl of cold water and leave until soft (about 10 minutes)
Gently bring to the boil the cream+sugar+vanilla.
Turn hob off.
Take the gelatine out of the bowl, squeeze the excess water and add to the cream.
Mix well (DO NOT WHISK ! as you can see on my picture, if you whisk, you will get foam and it does not look pretty.... so just mix well with a spoon).
Fill 4 little pots or ramequin and leave to cool.
When cool, place in the fridge overnight.

Add the topping when serving.



Linking to Sundae Scoop party @ I Heart Naptime
and Sunday Showcase @ Under the table and dreaming

{Valentine's Day table} Sneak peak

Red roses cake... I went to bed REALLY late last night....

{Valentine's Day table} Work in progress

This week I made cheesecakes, panna cotta, red velvet cake pops and more, but my favourite is this little beauty: chocolate mud cake with chocolate cream cheese frosting, quite simply delicious !!!

Pictures of the finished table to follow very soon, I just have about a hundret sugarpaste roses to make tonight...!

Have a sweet week end.

{Valentine's Day table} Baking, baking and more baking !

I have finished the decorations for my Valentine's day table, so now it is baking time !
And today I am sharing with you some of my favourite recipes that I will be using for the table.


Chocolate brownie bites
I love the recipe from Nigella Lawson's How to be a domestic goddess. 
This is a very rich cake, but it is delicious !

Photos from Nigella's website

This is a very good Brownie recipe but beware of the quantities, it will make quite a lot!
I did not put any walnuts in and instead added some chocolate chips.


Ingredients:

• 375 g soft unsalted butter
• 375 g best quality dark chocolate
• 6 large eggs
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 500 g caster sugar
• 225 g plain flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 300 g chopped walnuts

Directions:

1. 1
   Preheat the oven to 180°C.
2. 2
   Line your approximatley 33 x 23 x 5 1/2cm brownie pan with foil or baking paper.
3. 3
   Melt the butter and chocolate together in a large heavy based saucepan.
4. 4
   In a bowl beat the eggs with the sugar and vanilla.
5. 5
   Measure the flour into another bowl and add the salt.
6. 6
   When the chocolate mixture has melted, let it cool a bit before beating in the eggs and sugar mixture, and then the nuts and flour.
7. 7
   Beat to combine and then scrape out of the saucepan into the lined brownie pan.
8. 8
   Bake for about 25 minutes.
9. 9
   When its's ready, the top should be dried to a paler brown speckle, but the middle still dark and dense and gooey.
10. 10
    Keep checking the brownies as they cook; remember that they will continue to cook as they cool.

Chocolate Mud cake
I like the recipe from The Home guide to cake decorating by Jane Price.
Click the above link to browse the book on Amazon.co.uk and read the technical section of her book (including all her recipes...).

Ingredients for a 22cm round cake tin or 20cm square cake tin

220 g unsalted butter

220 g good quality dark chocolate
6 tsp instant coffee granules
160 mL water
125g self-raising flour
125g plain flour
50g cocoa powder
1/2 tsp bicarb soda
480 g caster sugar
4 large eggs
7 tsp vegetable oil
110 mL buttermilk

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C (less if fan oven)

2. Put the butter, chocolate, coffee and water in a pan and stir over low heat till melted. Remove from heat.

3. In a separate bowl, sift together the flours, cocoa, caster sugar and bicarb soda and make a well in the middle.


4. Whisk together the eggs, oil and buttermilk in a separate bowl till combined.


5. Pour the cooled chocolate mixture into the egg mixture and carefully whisk to combine.

6. Grease and line your cake tin with non-stick baking paper.

7. Slowly pour the chocolate mixture into the well in the flour mixture.

8. Mix well to combine, then carefully pour into the lined cake tin. Bake for 1 hour 45 minutes, or till a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. Leave the cake in the tin till completely cooled.




Red Velvet cake


I will be making a red velvet cake for the first time. I have decided to use this recipe from Cake Ink and I will let you know how I find it.

{Sweet table contest} And the winner is...

The winner of the 2011 Edition of the Sweet Table Contest has been announced.
It wasn't one of my favourites but still a very nice table and it is very original.

Congratulations to Vanessa 

from South Africa

More pictures here.

{Sweet table} Valentine's Day inspiration

I am in the process of creating a mini table for Valentine's Day and today I though I would share some of my inspiration.
My colour scheme is red and white with a little bit of black too (to allow for some dark chocolate treats...!). And the theme is based around red roses...

Let's start with two beautiful tables:

From Just call me Martha

What a genius idea to use envelopes for the background !

From Green Wedding shoes

I think having an all white table can be very challenging but they did 

a brilliant job and I love the red accents. How cute is that ruffle mini cake ?

Now for the decorations:

I will be trying to make a paper rose ball like this one from The House of Smiths, in red to match my colours. Their tutorial is pretty good.

I find these love tickets from the Silhouette store so cute, so I will have to try and find them a little spot on my table.

What would Valentine's day be without love words:

Subway art form Every Creative Endeavor

Now I "only" have the baking left to do !!!

{Craft} Hair clip Holders - Last pictures, I promise !

Here are the last pictures of the hair clip holders I made for Christmas.
Next week I promise, it's back to cakes! I am preparing a Valentine Day table so there is going to be a lot of baking involved.

I made the pink fairy Toadstool for a little girl who has a fairy theme in her bedroom.
I liked this little house so much that I then made another one using different colours.

And the last one was a little birdie:

That's it. Next year I will be making stockings !

{Craft} Owl Hair Clip Holders

Today I am sharing with you the pictures of my felt owl hair clip holders. I used the same design in 3 different colour combination. What's your favourite ?
I found owls were quite fun to make. You can make them look a bit funny by playing with the eyes.

Now this one was one of my favourites. I just love the bright blue with the red.
My daughter liked it so much that it stayed with us !

On this one I added a loop at the bottom to hang head bands.

The little snowflake detail is from a felt ribbon I found in Marks&Spencer with their Christmas wrapping supplies. It is similar to this one from Martha Stewart.

Linking to Sunday Scoop @ I Heart Naptime

{Craft} Triple hair clip holder

As you know I made quite a few hair clip holders as gifts for Christmas and now in January I have decided it is high time to finally post the pictures !

I really enjoyed making these. Felt is so easy to use and no sewing machine is required ! you just need felt sheets, buttons and fabric scraps.

Today I am sharing with you the triple hair clip holder I made for our little neighbours, they are triplets !
I just love this owl, isn't she cute ???
I copied the owl design from a baby T-shirt we had and I just added the branch.

More tomorrow...



Linking to I Heart Naptime Sunday Scoop

{Recipe} Nigella's Christmas pudding truffles

Just before Christmas I watched Nigella Lawson's Christmas serie and one of the episodes was about stocking fillers, homemade, of course. (Watch it here on youtube).

Picture from www.styleathome.com

I fell in love with her Christmas Puddini bonbon. They are quite simply adorable !

She basically mixes Christmas pudding with chocolate to create the truffles and decorates them with white chocolate and candied cherries so they look like mini Christmas pudding.
You can find the recipe here.
My advice: let the mixture set in the fridge for 15 minutes before attempting to make the truffles.

I could not find green glace cherries so my truffles did no look nearly as nice ( I used lime zest instead and the look is messy...) but they tasted really good !

I used my Silhouette SD to make the boxes and cards, so they are completely homemade little presents.


Linking to

{Book review} Super-cute Cookies

Today I am reviewing the book Super-cute Cookies from Chloe Coker

I was delighted to find this book under our tree at Christmas, what a treat ! 

The books is really well made and I find the technical chapter at the beginning of the book very good. Techniques are explained clearly with lots of photographs. 

The author really goes back to basics and shows the reader everything there is to know to make her beautiful cookies, from cutting the dough to covering the cookies with fondant or royal icing. She even shows how to make cookie cutters and piping bags.

In this sections you will also find recipes for cookie dough (vanilla, gingerbread and others) and royal icing.

The rest of the book is divided into 4 chapters:

Celebration and Gift

Fun for children

Holiday cookies

Love and wedding

In each section there is a beautiful selection of designs. You will be spoiled for choice. There are so many I want to try !

For each design there is a step by step photographic guide on how to decorate the cookies. Every technique required is well explained here or at the beginning of the book therefore all bakers should be able to follow the steps and achieve a beautiful cookie.

Templates to cut the cookies are included at the back of the book or can be downloaded here.

Some of my favourite designs:

Cookie bunting

What a fantastic idea this is !!!

Fabulous for a princess birthday party: Crown and Wand

Love the cherry blossoms

Fresh colours for Christmas

You can see further designs from the book on Chloe Coker website here.

All in all a very good book. Definitely a recommended buy for anyone who does not know all the techniques involved in cookie decorating since they are really well explained here.
Lots of inspirational pictures and a good collection of designs for every occasion.
At RRP £14.99 I think it is a great buy.

Please note that my opinions are my own and I am only reviewing books I already own.

"Home Made" cookie stamp

What would Christmas be without gadgets and stocking fillers ? You might have guessed that I usually get some cooking/baking related gadgets in my stockings...
Well this year was no exception !!!

I got this very cute cookie stamp that says "Home Made" and I love it. Any excuse to bake cookies ! I was already making these on boxing day....

Just prepare you favorite cookie dough, roll, cut circle shapes with a cutter and stamp before baking as usual.

Delicious.

Love Homemade !

Linking to Sundae Scoop Link party @ I Heart Naptime